


Cursed

by hamstercheese7



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Character Study, Love?, M/M, Reflection, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:33:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24567760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamstercheese7/pseuds/hamstercheese7
Summary: Sakazuki reflects on his soul bond with Borsalino. Soul Mate AU one-shot.
Relationships: Akainu | Sakazuki/Kizaru | Borsalino
Comments: 28
Kudos: 42





	Cursed

Sakazuki never thought it would happen to him. Never thought he’d receive a mark across his skin like a brand. But there it was, inscribed just below his ribcage in delicate loopy writing. A soulmark. He stared up into the darkness of his bedroom, the last night before a war the likes of which the world had never seen would begin. His eyes slowly wandered to the man asleep beside him, finding his corresponding mark along his shoulder blade. He frowned as he stared at it, his own name staring back at him, stark against his partner’s skin. 

Soul mates. Some had many, some had just one, but it was rare to encounter someone with none. A travesty people called it. A curse, to live a life without meeting your destined partner. To be alone.

Sakazuki had been one of such people for 57 years, and he had disagreed.

He remembered the first time he ever saw a soulmark. It was on his mother’s shoulder, his father’s chicken scratch scrawled small. He couldn’t recall having seen it before, his mother normally kept her back and shoulders covered, except for when she was working. She was sitting at the low table in the middle of the room of their one bedroom shack, a bottle of alcohol in her hand. 

He wasn’t expecting her to be home, she normally came home in the early hours of the morning. She turned around when he came in from the street, blinked at him, then turned back around to nurse her whiskey. She didn’t yell at him, so he felt safe enough to ask her about it. “What’s on your shoulder?” he asked as he pulled off his sneakers, noting with some irritation that there were going to be blood stains on the left one.  
  
She didn’t answer and he rolled his eyes. Whatever. He finished getting ready for bed, grabbing his good blanket and pulling it over his head, blocking out the firelight from the hearth. “Sakazuki,” came his mother’s voice. There was a weird tone to it that set his teeth on edge. He slowly tugged the blanket back down to look at her. 

The firelight reflected off her eyes like burning shards of glass. “A soulmark,” she hissed. Her hand clenched around the bottle. “It’s supposed to mark the most important people in your life,” she chuckled darkly. He didn’t like the glint in her eyes. “But don’t be fooled boy, it’s a fucking curse,” she muttered as she took another pull on the whiskey. 

When his father came home a few hours later, furious that his mother wasn’t out working on the street, she smashed the bottle over his head while he beat her face in.

\---

The mark appeared when he least expected it, but in hindsight it should have been obvious. 

The hospital room had been quiet, only the blinking of machines and the heart rate monitor connected to him disturbing the silence. Something had roused him into wakefulness. A feeling that he was not alone. It had taken him a few moments to get his bearings before his eyes fell on the disturbance. In a chair next to his hospital bed, sat a man in a familiar yellow pin-striped suit that looked almost green in the dim light. He was asleep, his head lolling off the back of the chair. 

Sakazuki had stared at him, unable to fathom why he was there. He never had hospital visitors. 

\---

Soul marks were considered a benchmark of humanity. Fishmen didn’t have them, neither did giants, or minks. Humans seemed to be uniquely cursed to be connected to one another. Unfortunately, many took it as what made them special, better. A gift from God. To have a soulmate was everything. 

No matter the price.

He’d climbed the ranks quickly once he’d joined the Navy, being placed on Admiral Zephyr’s contingent within a few years of graduating the academy. He’d seen Zephyr’s wife only once. She was pretty, his commander’s name written across the back of her hand, a matching one on Admiral Zephyr’s right arm. They had shared a private smile, Zephyr placing his hand on her stomach. For a moment, Sakazuki wondered what it would be like to be connected to another person like that, to know that you were looking at the one person you were meant to be with, to have that one instance of certainty in an entirely uncertain world. And he’d wanted it so badly it left him shaking in fear.

A few years later, Sakazuki was positive that her death was the beginning of his mentor’s absolute and unstoppable descent into madness, and felt his fear was justified.

\---

He turned onto his side, and pressed his lips over the mark softly. Borsalino was cool against his lips, so different from his own constant heat. His partner shifted in his sleep, waking slightly as Sakazuki pulled him closer, his arm around his waist, pressing his face into the crook of Borsalino’s shoulder. 

\---

The monitor next to his bed beeped, his heart rate slightly faster now that he was awake. Borsalino didn’t stir from his chair. Sakazuki narrowed his eyes at him. Most of their social circle was checking in on Kuzan, worried about that fucking idiot’s injuries, upset over Sakazuki nearly killing him. And he would have, there was no doubt in his mind. At one time he would have felt differently, but that was before Kuzan had changed, before Ohara. He’d seen the mark upon Kuzan’s skin, the soulmark connecting him to that damned woman as his magma burned through flesh and bone. 

“Borsalino,” he muttered, breaking the quiet of the room. His voice was rough, tinged with exhaustion from his ten day fight. When he spoke his name, Borsalino opened his eyes, turning his gaze upon him. They stared at one another for a long moment before Borsalino smiled softly at him, changed positions, and went back to sleep. 

That was when it happened. A strange feeling inside his chest, a warmth he never wanted, a connection forged that he couldn’t comprehend being without now that it existed.

\---

There were thousands of theories about what caused soul marks. Many said they came from deep connections made over long periods of time, like childhood friends. Others believed that they arose from meeting someone who connected to you instantaneously, like meeting someone on a street corner on a rainy day. And there were a few who believed they arose from specific events that changed a person, connecting people forever, like war. 

He really should have seen it coming. For most of his life, he’d spurned close relationships, doing what he needed to do to commandeer respect and awe, but go no further. He didn’t care if he was disliked. He wasn’t in the Navy to be liked, to make friends, to form “unbreakable” bonds. He was in the Navy to maintain order. Emotions were the antithesis to that.

Maybe that was what drew Borsalino to him, his steadfastness against chaos. He didn’t care about Sakazuki’s distance. He was never frightened of his anger. Never so much as batted an eye at his ruthlessness. Slowly wearing down Sakazuki’s defenses, pushing little by little until it was a common occurrence for the two of them to be seen together, to spend their free time in each other’s presence. And for some fucking reason, Sakazuki let him. Let him take up space in his life, allowed him to witness his more private moments. 

But as much as he told himself he didn’t understand why he let him in, he knew the reason. It was simple, Borsalino never tried to change him.

\---

He trailed his lips up from Borsalino’s shoulder to his neck, to his jaw. “Saka-” Borsalino murmured before Sakazuki shifted over him, cutting him off with a searing kiss against his lips. He didn’t know what the future would bring them. How the mark upon his skin would change him, would change the man below him. But he knew it would.

Borsalino said nothing as he pressed him down against the mattress, only kissed him back, threading his fingers into his hair, arching against him, breath warm against his skin, as they joined body and soul. 

As morning came, and they left the sanctity of his bedroom, Sakazuki wondered what his own descent into madness would look like, or if he would feel free, no longer burdened to another. No longer shackled to the man beside him through an act of an unknowable God. The mere concept of its loss leaving him gasping for air.

But as he claimed his seat at the head of the War Room, his eyes met Borsalino’s for a moment that seemed to continue indefinitely, a thousand little things communicated in a single instant. 

And in that moment, Sakazuki knew he was damned.

**Author's Note:**

> I was given Sakazuki/Borsalino as a one-shot prompt and this came out of it. It's a bit dark, and a bit sad, but I personally like bittersweet. Sakazuki is a complicated and difficult man, and it was fun to take that and see what it could look like in a world with soul mates. Would love to hear your thoughts.
> 
> As always, thanks for reading, and you can find me on twitter @buggyisbest  
> (I should write fluff for them sometime, just for the challenge)


End file.
